Department:
TechnologyOur Company Promise
We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.
Job Description:
About Us
At Southwest Airlines, we believe that flying should feel like freedom. For over 50 years, we’ve been connecting people to what matters most with low fares, legendary hospitality, and a heart for service. Our culture is built on the principles of fun, friendliness, and family, making us one of the most admired workplaces in the world.
If you’re passionate about making a difference, love working in a fast-paced environment, and want to help millions of travelers reach their destinations with a smile, Southwest Airlines is the place for you. Here, your career can truly take flight.
Job Summary
- The Platform AI & Integration Pod builds the foundational AI capabilities that integrate directly into developer workflows across Southwest — including GitLab Duo Agent Platform, enterprise Knowledge Graph, and platform accelerators. The team enables intelligent automation, faster developer productivity, and consistent AI adoption across the enterprise, connecting data, systems, and context so engineering teams can move faster with greater confidence.
- As Tech Lead Cloud DevOps Engineer – Platform AI & Integration, you'll own technical direction for a high-impact platform pod delivering enterprise DevOps standards, GitLab platform depth, and AI-enabled developer capabilities. You'll set reusable patterns other engineering teams build on, mentor engineers in our Hyderabad office, and shape how Southwest scales AI into the developer experience.
- A technical lead for a team focused on designing and building enterprise cloud infrastructure automation, pipeline, CI/CD patterns and cloud capabilities for AWS. Focus on overall product implementation with responsibilities that include providing technical guidance for team members, ensuring cost-effectiveness, quality of solution, design, and implementation.
- Work with other leaders to shape, improve and evolve the cloud platform vision and strategy for the future of cloud infrastructure and help manage the adoption process
- Operate in a DevOps culture and team, responsible for architecture, design, development, implementation, and ongoing operations of new and emerging technology platforms
- Evaluate cloud services and architecture to identify strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems
- Implement automation tools and frameworks for automatic code deployment (CI/CD)
- Work with the development team to deploy and manage tools that support SDLC automation, configuration management, and release management
- Create state-of-the-art technical architectures with automation to support complex delivery across a wide range of digital and enterprise applications
- Consult with stakeholders to specify requirements and solutions which address business challenges and opportunities
- Serve as a subject matter expert in cloud infrastructure, performing design reviews and consulting with internal teams to ensure design best practices
- Participate in system and acceptance testing to ensure that systems are functionally appropriate, technically sound, and well-integrated
- Lead, define and clearly communicate technical standards, governance, and compliance for cloud ecosystem
- May perform other job duties as directed by Employee's Leaders
- Knowledge of AWS Infrastructure as a Service Automation tools like Cloud Formation
- Knowledge of AWS compute, data sources, security technologies
- Knowledge of infrastructure-as-code (IAC)
- Skilled in deployment strategies using Docker for containerization
- Knowledge of the monitoring and management of the build and deployment processes and infrastructure
- Ability to analyze services to ensure security best practices are followed
- Ability to mentor and guide team members' learning, including introducing new ideas and technologies
- Skilled in evaluating, onboarding, and managing new technologies/services/features
- Ability to anticipate business needs and lead a team towards identifying and solving cross-domain problems
Preferred:
Hands-on Tech Lead — sets direction and builds alongside the team
Advanced AWS platform engineering with multi-account, IAM, and security governance
GitLab platform depth — pipelines, runners, templates, governance, scaling
Enterprise developer platform mindset — reusable patterns and standards used by many teams
Terraform module design with multi-environment patterns and drift management
Observability and SRE practices — SLOs, error budgets, incident improvement
AI-enabled developer platforms (Duo Agent Platform, agent workflows)
Artifact management, code scanning, and secure software delivery (Nexus, SBOM)
Cross-functional partnership with peer Tech Leads across Technology
- Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or related field and/or equivalent formal training
Required: Expert-level experience, expansive and far-reaching knowledge in Cloud software or DevOps
8-10 years of relevant work-related experience
Preferred:
Building enterprise developer platforms used across many engineering teams
GitLab Duo Agent Platform, Knowledge Graph, or comparable AI-enabled developer tooling
Container orchestration at scale (Kubernetes, EKS, ECS) with production support experience
Service mesh (Istio/App Mesh), API Gateway, and WAF for platform integrations
FinOps for developer platforms and AI-adjacent workloads
Mentoring engineers across a globally distributed team
Technical leadership within a large enterprise environment
- Must meet confidentiality expectations as to confidential, proprietary and sensitive Company information
- Ability to work extended hours as needed
Southwest Airlines is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
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Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or related field or equivalent formal training
- 8-10 years of relevant experience in Cloud software or DevOps (expert-level experience)
- Knowledge of AWS Infrastructure as a Service automation tools like CloudFormation
- Knowledge of AWS compute, data sources, and security technologies (including IAM and multi-account governance)
- Knowledge of infrastructure-as-code (IAC) practices and tooling
- Skilled in deployment strategies using Docker for containerization
- Knowledge of monitoring and management of build and deployment processes and infrastructure
- Ability to analyze services to ensure security best practices are followed
- Ability to mentor and guide team members and introduce new technologies
- Ability to evaluate, onboard, and manage new technologies/services/features
- Must meet confidentiality expectations for proprietary and sensitive company information
- Willingness/ability to work extended hours as needed
- Hands-on tech lead experience, setting direction and building alongside the team
- Advanced AWS platform engineering with multi-account, IAM, and security governance
- GitLab platform depth (pipelines, runners, templates, governance, scaling)
- Terraform module design with multi-environment patterns and drift management
- Observability and SRE practices (SLOs, error budgets, incident improvement)
- Experience with AI-enabled developer platforms (Duo Agent Platform, agent workflows) or comparable tooling
- Artifact management, code scanning, and secure software delivery (e.g., Nexus, SBOM)
- Container orchestration at scale (Kubernetes, EKS, ECS) with production support experience
- Service mesh and API/WAF experience (Istio, App Mesh, API Gateway, WAF)
- FinOps experience for developer platforms and AI-adjacent workloads
- Experience mentoring engineers across globally distributed teams and technical leadership in large enterprises
Southwest Airlines Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Southwest Airlines and has not been reviewed or approved by Southwest Airlines.
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Pay Growth & Progression — Pay progression is described as materially improving after major 2024 union agreements, especially for pilots and flight attendants. Compensation satisfaction is framed as stronger over time as step scales and seniority accumulate.
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Retirement Support — Retirement support stands out through a dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match and the presence of profit-sharing contributions that can add to retirement savings. Stock purchase access is also positioned as an additional ownership-oriented component of total rewards.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing and lifestyle value is elevated by extensive space-available travel privileges and broad travel-related discounts that can materially offset personal travel costs. Recognition mechanisms like points-based rewards are also positioned as an added lifestyle-oriented perk.
Southwest Airlines Insights
What We Do
At Southwest Airlines we connect People to what’s important in their lives—that also means connecting our Employees to what’s important in their lives! Our Employees value the opportunity to work hard, be creative, and have fun on the job. Southwest Airlines recognizes, respects, and values differences. By fostering a culture that embraces and utilizes our diversity, we create competitive advantages in teamwork and innovation that contribute to our overall success.
